COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[Person Man]

I know most people on this forum come from households earning millions a year but...

What on Earth gives you that impression?

Yeah, this is news to me. 

I don't think he was trying to be taken literally. This forum is disproportionally privileged though.

[Person Man]

I know most people on this forum come from households earning millions a year but...

What on Earth gives you that impression?

Yeah, this is news to me.  

I don't think he was trying to be taken literally. This forum is disproportionally privileged though.

Exactly.  That's my point and I didnt mean millionaires literally lol.

But I am stunned that a large segment of this forum and general population think indefinite lockdowns for years are a logical choice. Those people are either wealthy, can work from home, elderly or do not need to work.

I can work from home but my girlfriend was furloughed. One of my brothers is looking for a first job after a double major in Econ and Psych, a MS in Econ, and a MPA from mid-tier public schools (Oregon, Wyoming, and Montana State). He's moving to Harvard because his girlfriend got a postdoc there. He's much more grounded than I am and he's somewhat technical because of the Econ (he burnt out before the Ph.D.) but his future is uncertain. I know that he can PROBABLY get a job as a data analyst or business analyst at either a bank or a big Indian consulting firm but I don't know who would be hiring in this environment. He also doesn't understand that he is probably starting around $55000 or $65000 a year instead of $80000. Though I don't know. In a place like Massachusetts, I think if he got a job as a direct hire, he could be at 70k and if he gets it a consulting, it would be at 60k. If it were in Florida or Arizona, those would be like 60k and 50k respectively.  Maybe with two three years' experience he can get 80. My best friend also faces an uncertain future after he decided to quit work for his boss after his boss harassed his wife. It happened just before the lock down. My other brothers are OK, though. One is a respiratory therapist and one is a Psychologist at the VA. They'll be fine.

[Person Man]

Giving out money would be a better answer in a country that was capable of getting a check to everyone within a couple of weeks, or that had a functioning system of unemployment insurance.

This fragile and humiliating state of affairs is the result of decades of political decisions, but no amount of political will can reverse that savage reality in time to get help to everyone who would need it during a lockdown of six months or more.

In short, everyone is afraid, no one knows exactly what to do, and the circumstances that we face are so unprecedented that projections about either the economy or the virus remain extremely uncertain (discounting hyperbolic claims such as Beet's assertion in the first COVID thread that 5% of the world's human population would die).

The rest of 2020 is going to be very uncertain, and so will the first months of 2021 until a vaccine is approved. If a second wave hits in the fall, what will be done? The past month's experience has shown that we can't afford to go on lockdown again, without risk of further damaging the economy. And how effective have the precautions we taken been? I think it's likely coronavirus will infect as many people (~60 million) as were infected by the swine flu a decade ago.

If it turns out to be that, our system will be overrun as it is currently designed. I don't think it will be that bad, though. That would translate to at least a million and perhaps a couple million deaths. We've already lost about as many Americans as we did in Vietnam, and we're not even out of the first full month of the thing but I think we will probably get to 60000 "soon" and eventually get to 100000 -150000.

[Person Man]

The virus apparently causes blood clotting. In at least one young patient, the first symptom was a stroke. NY doctors are now prescribing blood thinners as standard care.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-blood/alarmed-as-covid-patients-blood-thickened-new-york-doctors-try-new-treatments-idUSKCN22421Z

It's a minor miracle that the death toll isn't much much higher than it is, given how nasty corona is.

This collaborates a suspicion. https://vimeo.com/402537849

[Person Man]

https://mobile.twitter.com/grynbaum/status/1253142566708473856

This is the study that found no benefit in treatment but an increase in deaths among those given it.

They keep pushing this just because Trump said it. I thought of a possible treatment that turns out to actually help (blood plasma), but I'm not the President.

Not to mention Remdesivir and a bunch of other treatments that have shown promise. But no, keep doubling down on Hydrox.

OK,

Good news for the Europe and USA. All appear to be on the downward slope now to recovery. The interesting thing about this pandemic is the limited time period displayed in all countries including South Korea and China. 1 month up and 1-2 months down the curve in most instances with a slight variation in the length in some countries.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I have to disagree with you here. U.S cases are NOT going down, we added more cases today than yesterday and we added 30k+ new cases today....

I don't think you understand the difference between active cases and new cases.

Also, yes, case rates are going town. Slowly at first though.

When I say added cases I meant new cases

Maybe we've past the peak but its definitely lingering to the point where no one can say we're out of the woods yet. If people are stupid enough, we might not have actually peaked yet.

[Person Man]

CNBC reporting this morning that the weekly unemployment report (due at 0830 EST this morning) will yield some 4.3 million new unemployment claims during the week ending April-18th. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/another-4point3-million-workers-expected-to-have-filed-unemployment-claims.html

This is more in line of what I was expecting when we elected someone to be president whose last job was firing people on national TV.

[Person Man]

26 million jobs lost in 1 month. I hope saving a few centenarians were worth it.

Silence sociopath.

Don't even bother.

While there are reasons to be concerned with the economic impacts of these sweeping stay-at-home orders, it drives me nuts when people marginalize the lives of others simply because of their ages.  

Cost benefit analysis. Happens all the time. Again, the world is brutal.

PQG, do you think that this guy wants the 'rona? Do you think he would enjoy it? I think he thinks its exchanging the sniffles for a chance to find work. Does he even work, anyway?

[Person Man]

That escalated quickly.

Because of this, those "protests" deserve to lose all the support they ever had.

Anti-freedom racism like that doesn't belong at a rally that claims to stand for freedom.

Montana and Colorado are trying to reopen responsibly after the ongoing disaster. Garbage like this really sets the effort back.

That explains the flags at least.

[Person Man]

"I see the disenfectant knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we could do something like that? By... injection inside or... almost a cleaning, cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number and so I'd be interested to check that"

Denaturation and oxidation of healthy living cells.  Throwing off the very delicate pH balance of the blood and potentially inducing metabolic alkalosis.  A cascade of alkali necrosis as the agent enters the bloodstream.  

Good. Lord.  

Trumptinis get the job done in one shot. Guaranteed.

[Person Man]

"I see the disenfectant knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we could do something like that? By... injection inside or... almost a cleaning, cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number and so I'd be interested to check that"

Denaturation and oxidation of healthy living cells.  Throwing off the very delicate pH balance of the blood and potentially inducing metabolic alkalosis.  A cascade of alkali necrosis as the agent enters the bloodstream.  

Good. Lord.  

You are Fake news!!!!

I can't tell if this is ironic or not. If it is, bravo. If not, consider that you've just told a med student that she's fake news.

The ironic thing is how the right gets to tell people that they are who they because it is *FACT* but they are allowed to believe what they want to because its how they feel the world is.

[Person Man]

Now they are saying we may be dealing with this for several more years. Are we still planning to shut the economy down into the mid 2020s now?

And after that I bet we will shut the economy down every winter due to seasonal cold and flu until 2030 when we are all required to wear hazmat suits everywhere.

We're not. We'll figure out a way to minimize risks and get back to our social and economic lives. Probably not in the exact same way as before, but a lot better than the current situation. Right now we need some time to study the virus and prepare for post lockdown management of the pandemic. Please don't think that "we need lockdowns now" and "the virus is not going away" means "we need lockdowns in perpetuity".

I am opposed to all the states reopening up next week. But right now it is like we have no plan on what to do to reopen the economy effectively.

Only thing I see is people proposing indefinite debt.

That ship sailed a long time ago. 

The only way we get back to solvency is creating a situation where there are no longer any creditors to pay. Is that what you want?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1256911953903202307

It's always about him.

And his illiteracy.

[Person Man]

Not sure if there’s a separate thread for discussing the No Lives Matter protests, so I’ll post this here for now:

https://twitter.com/adamweinstein/status/1256755717685551110?s=21

You mean the Flu Klux Klan?

[Person Man]

I'm still suspicious that new cases are slowly dropping here in Florida but going up in every state surrounding us

That they're giving the virus the China Treatment?

[Person Man]

It's amazing to me that cases and deaths each day are essentially going UP right now, and the best idea that the nation can come up with is to reopen.

Maybe the R0 value is suppressed to the point we won't have piles of sick and dying people in the street but if that happens, there is nothing we can do now.

[Person Man]

The worst American pandemic was the Spanish Flu 100 years that took 600000 people. We might get close if virus wasn't really contained.

[Person Man]

Social distancing assumes that, at some point or another, you will eventually come into contact with a high enough concentration of the virus to get infected.  The only thing that varies is the timing. 

No I don't think that's right. Suppose a kid is asymptomatic and visits his grandma. If they try to stay 6 feet apart she'll probably get a smaller load than if they hug and kiss when they meet/leave. This affects her mortality. After that, if she survives she's immune. It doesn't matter how many other infected people she comes into contact with at that point.

Not to nitpick, but that is what social distancing assumes because the "flatten the curve" models are unspecified in regards to viral loads/divergent infectivity.   

Even so, viruses are not poisons - within the body they are self-replicating.  While the initial "dose" of virus someone receives may affect their disease's progression (their innate immune response could be overwhelmed, thus making their later acquired immune response less effective), higher viral loads are themselves a result of severe cases more so than a cause.  Asymptomatic children are not going to be carrying enough virus to seriously impede the innate immune response of an (even older) adult; if grandma gets sick this way and dies, her immune system was already operating at severe disadvantage.   

My understanding is that social distancing that is sufficient to make the reproductive rate permanently go below 1 would lead to the virus eventually dying out in the population if sustained long enough and any infected international travelers are quarantined before entry.

However, at our current degree of social distancing, the reproductive rate in most states appears to be 0.8-1.1 depending on how this is influenced by the ramp up of testing.  With an initial reproductive rate of 0.9 and large outbreak to begin with, whatever social distancing conditions led to the 0.9 rate would have to be sustained for a very long time--potentially multiple years--for the virus to die out rather than spreading throughout that population.  If prohibitions on 100+ gatherings alone are sufficient to drive infection reproduction to 0.9, that might be socially sustainable until it's gone in the summer of 2022, but it's clear the current measures in the more restrictive states will not be sustainable that long.  However it's also true that, in practice, we are trying to hold the line until effective outpatient treatments are available and may not ultimately need to drive it to 0, just keep a lid on it until better medicine comes along.  That is more viable. 

I can almost buy that. All I know is that my supervisor doesn't want us back into the office until the pandemic is completely "over". What ever that means. I guess until there's a vaccine?

[Person Man]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/accidental-poisonings-from-bleach-and-disinfectants-more-than-doubled-in-april-—-the-same-month-trump-suggested-they-could-be-injected/ar-BB13YUjc?li=BBnbfcL

[Person Man]

Damn...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-coronavirus-outbreaks-push-china-to-impose-wuhan-style-lockdown-in-the-northeast/ar-BB14oIbf?li=BBnb7Kz

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1267709439467020288

 these bullsh**t health experts.
Del Tachi was 100% in calling our their absolute fakeness.

I should go to a protest with thousands of people but churches have a strict limit of 25.

The virus spreads easier indoors.

It's a catch-22. You either let corrupt public officials do whatever they want  or abandon public health. We're really at the point of no return on so many things.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1267709439467020288

 these bullsh**t health experts.
Del Tachi was 100% in calling our their absolute fakeness.

I should go to a protest with thousands of people but churches have a strict limit of 25.

The virus spreads easier indoors.

It's a catch-22. You either let corrupt public officials do whatever they want  or abandon public health. We're really at the point of no return on so many things.

That's a good way to put it, everything is such a mess right now.

That's an understatement. This is failure.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1267709439467020288

 these bullsh**t health experts.
Del Tachi was 100% in calling our their absolute fakeness.

I should go to a protest with thousands of people but churches have a strict limit of 25.

The virus spreads easier indoors.

It's a catch-22. You either let corrupt public officials do whatever they want  or abandon public health. We're really at the point of no return on so many things.

That's a good way to put it, everything is such a mess right now.

That's an understatement. This is failure.

No. This is SPARTA!!!

More like Rome in 400 AD.

[Person Man]

The public health response is what happens when PhD holders in this country are totally captured by and face sanction for failing to adhere to ideological wokeness.

These are the same PhD holders who used the same "ideological wokeness" to cajole us into lockdowns, school closures and universal mask mandates, mind you.  

I just hope this whole, drawn-out episode truly demonstrates how useless the medical/scientific/academic elite truly are (I say this as someone who spent 3 years in graduate school + my parents are both PhDs).  Governors and public officials who mindlessly jumped onto their bandwagon shouldn't have have a shred of credibility left.  

Nah.

What's the alternative? People just do and think whatever they want based on nothing? The system sucks, OK? But saying that "no one really knows what's going on" is just accepting whatever the world throws at us. It's not what adults do.

On the other hand, you did talk about making a bad trade in prolonging the lives of those whom we currently lack the engineering, social, and scientific capacity to provide a "good" quality of life to at the expense of literally everyone else.

 I think that's another broad generalization but it does suggest that a lot of these experts might be misallocated. Perhaps we gave into technocratic tendencies before we had clear objectives of what we wanted as a society. Putting policy into the hands of experts only works if you know what you actually want in the first place. Having experts go out and make that decision for us might be something we need to think about.  Asking economists from the University of Chicago what we wanted is what gave us extreme right-liberalism and only populism as an alternative.

[Person Man]

In the meantime, mask orders continue to spread, although their speed has declined somewhat in recent weeks. In Colorado, Governor Polis issued an order yesterday allowing businesses to deny service to customers who do not wear masks: https://gazette.com/news/no-mask-no-service-polis-order-gives-business-owners-right-of-refusal/article_9c5bd300-a697-11ea-adf6-53f2e7c59fb5.html. Now, this isn't a full-blown mask mandate, in contrast to what other Governors-primarily in the Northeast and Midwest-have imposed. But it's a step in that direction. How sustainable are these orders going to be when it gets very hot?

The order should require prominent signage so persons can know before they get out of their car that masks are required. It also does not state the means of removal.

"Our Masks are Our Passport to the Colorado We Love"

How about

"Work Will Set You Free"

"Thank You Dear Comrade Polis for a Happy Childhood!"

"Colorado Above All"

Don't be dumb.

And sure. I'm fine with people having to post up notices for people that they need masks on to go into a place. They should have to comply with similar other conspicuous notices rules if they are unable to complete other legal and reasonable transactions based on any other sincere attribute or personal need that they have that makes them unable to fulfill those transactions.

There should be signs on the door of their establishment saying
"Because of COVID-19, we only allow entry to do those with the proper protective gear"
or
"Due to my health, I am unable to allow even service animals into my store"
or
"Due to theological concerns, prescriptions that disrupt normal human reproduction will not be filled here."

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/MelissaBlasius/status/1269020760393146374

What happens if they reach capacity?